Critics are warning that the criminal-justice reform bill being hailed as a bipartisan victory doesn't go nearly far enough

Senators on Tuesday voted 87 to 12 to approve the First Step
Act, a bill reforming certain parts of the federal
criminal-justice system.

But even its supporters have criticized it for not going far
enough - urging Americans to recognize that the bill needs to be
followed up with stronger reforms.

Some critics on the right, including Arkansas Sen. Tom
Cotton, also assailed the bill as "misguided and dangerous,"
saying it would release violent criminals.

After the US Senate overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to reform
certain parts of the criminal-justice system, a move lauded as a
remarkable bipartisan victory under the Trump administration,
even its supporters are saying that the legislation will
ultimately be toothless if it's not followed up with stronger
reforms.

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The passage of the bill, known as the First Step Act, marked the
first major legislative win in decades to address mass
incarceration at the federal level.

The bill overhauls certain federal sentencing laws, reducing
mandatory minimum sentences for drug felonies and expanding
early-release programs. In a major win for prison-reform groups,
the bill also makes retroactive a 2010 federal sentencing law
reducing the sentencing disparity between crack and powder
cocaine offenses.

The bill also aims to lower recidivism by offering more
rehabilitation and job-training opportunities, and it includes
provisions intended to treat prisoners humanely - banning the
shackling of pregnant inmates, halting the use of solitary
confinement for most juvenile inmates, and mandating that
prisoners be placed in facilities within 500 miles from their
families.

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But even the advocates and lawmakers who pushed the bill forward
are urging caution in celebrating too soon. Sen. Kamala Harris, a
California Democrat, tweeted at length about the
shortcomings of the bill on Monday before saying she ultimately
decided to vote for it.

She criticized the legislation for not applying all of the
sentencing reforms retroactively, not going far enough in
applying earned good-time credits, failing to crack down on the
private-prison industry, and not reining in the use of electronic
monitoring.

"To be clear, the FIRST STEP Act is very much just that - a first
step," she said. "It is a compromise of a compromise, and we
ultimately need to make far greater reforms if we are to right
the wrongs that exist in our criminal justice system."

And though most of the major criminal-justice-reform advocacy
groups supported the bill - including the American Civil
Liberties Union - some shied away entirely.

The National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, an
organization representing dozens of Protestant denominations,
criticized the bill for relying too heavily on electronic
monitoring to surveil released prisoners and for failing to make
its mandatory minimum sentencing reforms retroactive, a key
provision that law-enforcement groups had demanded before
pledging their support.

"Despite current bipartisan enthusiasm for any move toward
criminal justice reform, the First Step Act is insufficient
toward that end," Rev. Steven Martin said in a statement. "While
compromise is a necessary part of consensus-building around
legislation, this bill will have harmful consequences, which will
be more difficult to correct later."

'Misguided and dangerous'

caption

Sen. Tom Cotton.

source

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Meanwhile among conservatives, the strongest opposition from the
right came from Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, who
assailed the bill as "misguided and dangerous" in a recent
National Review op-ed and
criticized his conservative colleagues in the Senate for their
support.

"The First Step Act provides hundreds of new rights and
privileges to federal prisoners. More phone time, reduced
sentences, 'compassionate release,' and early release credits,"
he tweeted. "There is not a
single benefit in the bill for the victims of these criminals."

Cotton and Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana proposed three major
amendments that were widely criticized for exempting broad swaths
of prisoners from the bill's early-release provisions,
effectively defanging much of the bill's benefits for prisoners.

Liberal groups criticized the amendments; #cut50, an initiative
to reduce the prison population, called the amendments "attempts
to derail a bill that prioritizes public safety and
rehabilitation." All three amendments were resoundingly struck
down.

"The bipartisan coalition stuck together and won. Tom Cotton's
scare tactics were a resounding failure," Jessica Jackson Sloan,
national director of #cut50, said in a statement. "The
overwhelming rejection of his amendments shows a clear mandate
for federal criminal justice reforms."

The bill is expected to pass the House of Representatives and
move on to the White House, where President Donald Trump has
vowed to sign it.